To: Rick Shenkman, History New Network

Re:
http://hnn.us/articles/927.html
America's Three Million Muslims: Who Are They?

In the vein of Crevecour, let me tell you a story: I know of a
couple of young people, a brother and a sister. Their mother's
mother was a Russian Jewess.  Their mother's father was a Crimean
Tartar. Their father's father was a Muslim Arab from the Lebanon.
I'm not sure about their father's mother's exact ethnicity. Their
half-sister's father was an American Appalachian. Daniel Pipes'
ethnic identity politics are basically irrelevant. Ethnic
identity politics are only for those at the very bottom of
society whom no one wants to associate with. As groups establish
themselves, they marry outward.
    If we're going to talk about terrorist organizations, let's
talk about the Jewish Defense League. Let's also talk about the
sender or senders of the anthrax letters, who, on the available
evidence, were almost certainly top-secret employees of the
United States government, attempting to organize a pogrom against
the Arab-Americans, at the same time that they enabled the
president to rule by decree. It's the same basic formula that
Herr Hitler used in 1933- state terror doesn't change very much
over the years.  Anthraxgate is still as obscure as Watergate was
in late 1972, and I doubt the investigation will get anywhere
until a special prosecutor is appointed, one who does not work
for the president.

                                 Andrew D. Todd

RE: Why Profiling Is Necessary (If Its Done Right) By Daniel Pipes
     http://hnn.us/articles/2741.html

     Bill Heuisler's comment:

    (formerly http://hnn.us/comments/27572.html)
https://web.archive.org/web/20050101122620/http://hnn.us/comments/27572.html

in:

https://web.archive.org/web/20041204054844/http://hnn.us/articles/2741.html


There is a man named Ed Lake, who has gone into the anthrax attacks in enormous depth:

// make this into a fotnote

[To research the anthrax attacks, the starting  point is Ed Lake's _The Anthrax Cases_. Lake has done the legwork of assembling a substantial clippings file, available  on-line.
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20080523210802/http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/
[
formerly http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/
The original URL now points to a domain mart. Given that Lake was collecting enormous libraries of press clipping, and thus preventing the authorities from changing their story from one day to the next, Newspeak/Ministry-of-Truth fashion. Of course, the copyright laws being what the were, he was always fighting take-down notices.
]

Lake's website is in effect the evolving first draft of a book. You don't have to agree with Lake's conclusions, of course,  but it is worthwhile reading his dossiers (literally hundreds of items). One of  Lake's most important ideas is that there were two parties, the anthrax supplier and the  anthrax mailer.  One implication is that the supplier need not  have known or consented to the actual mailing of the anthrax. He  may well have thought it was for something else. In consequence, you don't have to postulate the supplier being a foaming-at-the-mouth type. He can be someone sane enough to allowed to work in a government bio-weapons establishment. For example, the supplier can be a "good soldier" who automatically assumes that when the president asks for weaponized anthrax, it is for an at least quasi-legitimate purpose, such as taking out Saddam  Hussein.  It is a matter of current dispute whether the anthrax was actually "weaponized" at Ft. Detrick. Ed Lake thinks not. However, I am inclined to agree with Gary Matsumoto that it was. This would account for why the most extravagant possible search has not turned up a clandestine laboratory. It also has the "occam's razor" advantage of not  postulating two microbiologists engaged in dubious pursuits when one will suffice.

The anthrax mailer is a different story. What little we know of him is that he committed an act of intentional terrorism on American soil, and that he probably did not have  the scientific knowledge to appreciate some of the implications of what he was doing (eg. genetic fingerprinting, danger of mass casualties). When he tried to fake a  message from supposed arabs, he was not the kind of person who could unobtrusively  get  himself a translation of the Koran, and quote some authentic fire and brimstone--  instead he used Hollywood doggerel. I am no arabist, but a rummage through my library turned up a dozen or so books on the general subject, including Marmaduke Pickthall's translation of the Koran. The average high school library would probably have yielded as much. So the picture of  the mailer which emerges is of someone of marginal literacy. That is a very odd sort of person for a highly qualified scientist to know. Scientists naturally associate mostly with other scientists, or with other academics.  However, the mailer is compatible with the kinds of professional criminals whom G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North recruited for their escapades.

What I think happened is that someone from the White House came to Fort Detrick immediately after September 11, and said, in effect, "The President wants to give Saddam Hussein a birthday present," or words to that effect. If the weapons scientists had scruples, the envoy probably said: "Well, the alternative is to nuke Baghdad... I was hoping you could help..."

He knew that Fort Detrick is immensely jealous of the nuclear weapons program, which seems to get all the funding and all the glory. You can't protect yourself against a nuclear weapon by putting on a rubber suit. Ditto for a cluster bomb. So bioweapons aren't really very effective against soldiers. Now, here was Fort Detrick's  chance if they wanted it. The weapons scientists agreed. Once they had done so, there was no turning back. Now the envoy was all business. When could they have the anthrax ready? The afternoon of Sept. 15? Good! Now, could they provide a set of written directions for putting the anthrax into an envelope? The weapons scientists would naturally understand that they did not have "need-to-know" for the envelope's address. Finally, the envoy arranged for them to hand over the materials to a "Mr..Smith" at a convenient gas station somewhere.

At this stage, the envoy may very well have been speaking the truth about his intentions. Congress and the news media were still shocked into complete passivity. By the time the anthrax was delivered however, conditions were changing. Somewhere along the line, the attack got diverted.    Most of the targets of the first mailing were important liberal media outlets. American Media is a bit of an anomaly. However, if His Nibs was ranting about the National Enquirer stories in such a way that half the west wing could hear him, it is easy to see how someone composing a little list (he's got a little list/ they will  none of them be missed) might add the name on  the spur of the moment.  The second attack was directed at two democratic senators   who were delaying  the  USA Patriot act. The  FBI is of  course an  institutional beneficiary of this act. This does not mean that the FBI participated, but it does mean that their  collective judgment may be a bit addled, and they may have difficulty facing certain facts.

The conspiracy was probably organized so that no more than five or ten people needed to know about its component parts before the fact, and probably no more than ten or twenty after the fact. It was probably the work of an overly ambitious aide, operating  in the tradition of G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North. High officials probably did not engage in the actual planning, though, confronted with a fait accompli, they may very well have engaged in obstruction of justice afterward.

The obvious and elementary way to crack the conspiracy open is to work out who at Fort Detrick knew whom in the administration, and when they met, and what they talked about. Interview both parties, to provide a check  At a certain point, someone will be trapped in a lie, or possibly the administration will suddenly declare something to be secret and covered by executive privilege, and then, the fun and games will start.  But the FBI is afraid to follow up the obvious and elementary thing.

However, one of the things we learned from Watergate and Contragate is that one bagman is apt to hold many bags, to make a specialty of being a bagman. A  special  prosecutor has been appointed for the Valerie Plame affair, and his investigations may very well  put him on the trail of Anthraxgate.